I highly recommend this book for group discussion. The pace of the book is slow (that sounds more negative than I intend) and the detail rich. I felt drawn into the lives of the characters and cared what happened to each of them.

To lose your mother and then your sister in an already lonely, abandoned land made Talmadge the person he was. He had his orchards and his kindness to keep him going.

Talmadge lived alone in his family home that really had no family except Talmadge until one day two girls, Jane and Della, arrived on his land and began stealing his fruit. Talmadge let them steal the fruit, and he also fed them. They stayed away from him for the most part and only made an appearance when he put food out for them. Both girls were pregnant, and Talmadge had the midwife stop by to try to get the girls to warm up to her since they would be needing her.

These girls became his family or the best semblance of what a family could be. The book follows Talmadge through the stages of the girls\\\' lives and how their being present in his life helped him be happy as well as allow him to experience the heartache of their growing up and his being a concerned parent. His concern for Della became an obsession.

As you continue reading, you will become extremely involved in the plot and the lives of each character. You will become attached to Talmadge, Della, Caroline, and Angelene and hope things turn out for all of them. Talmadge was an odd person and one you would like to tell to wake up even though he was such a good person. Caroline was the character who held everyone together. Della was not a likable character. And wonderful Angelene was adorable, kind, and a character you will fall in love with.

The book had marvelous descriptions of feelings, landscapes, and characters. It was beautifully written for a first novel. It was as outstanding in writing style, interest, and development of the story and characters as a seasoned author.

I can\\\'t give enough praise for this book. It was touching, tender, brilliantly written, mesmerizing, and one you will remember long after you turn the last page.

THE ORCHARDIST is not an uplifting book but the prose and the storyline are so exceptional that regardless of the book\\\'s mood it instantly grips you. 5/5

This book was given to be free of charge by the publisher without compensation for a blog tour with TLC Book Tours in exchange for an honest review.

THE ORCHARDIST is a lovely book, and many people rave about it. So you might not want to pay attention to my criticism. Maybe they're right and I'm wrong. But I have two problems with this book.
First, the author, Amanda Coplin, never lets her readers know any character. She glosses over everything.
Second, Coplin uses too many sentence fragments, and she doesn't use quotation marks. This is a device, I'm sure, but for what, I'm not sure. I only know that the result for the reader is choppy sentences that are difficult to read.
I won THE ORCHARDIST through http://www.ManOfLaBook.com blog.

The best book I read in the whole year of 2012! A wonderful story that kept you turning the pages and when you finished you just sat there for a while savoring this amazing book. Then, you turned it back to page 1 and started reading it again, more slowly this time.

Beautifully written, Amanda Coplin transports the reader to the wilderness of Washington at the turn of the 20th century. The characters are deeply developed and you will find yourself captivated with this touching debut novel.

To lose your mother and then your sister in an already lonely, abandoned land made Talmadge the person he was. He had his orchards and his kindness to keep him going.

Talmadge lived alone in his family home that really had no family except Talmadge until one day two girls, Jane and Della, arrived on his land and began stealing his fruit. Talmadge let them steal the fruit, and he also fed them. They stayed away from him for the most part and only made an appearance when he put food out for them. Both girls were pregnant, and Talmadge had the midwife stop by to try to get the girls to warm up to her since they would be needing her.

These girls became his family or the best semblance of what a family could be. The book follows Talmadge through the stages of the girls' lives and how their being present in his life helped him be happy as well as allow him to experience the heartache of their growing up and his being a concerned parent. His concern for Della became an obsession.

As you continue reading, you will become completely involved in the plot and the lives of each character. You will become attached to Talmadge, Della, Caroline, and Angelene and hope things turn out for all of them. Talmadge was an odd person and one you would like to tell to wake up even though he was such a good person. Caroline was the character who held everyone together. Della was not a likable character. And wonderful Angelene was adorable, kind, and a character you will fall in love with.

The book had marvelous descriptions of feelings, landscapes, and characters. It was beautifully written for a first novel. It was as outstanding in writing style, interest, and development of the story and characters as a seasoned author.
I can't give enough praise for this book. It was touching, tender, brilliantly written, mesmerizing, and one you will remember long after you turn the last page.

THE ORCHARDIST is not an uplifting book but the prose and the storyline are so exceptional that regardless of the book's mood it instantly grips you. 5/5

This book was given to be free of charge by the publisher without compensation for a blog tour with TLC Book Tours in exchange for an honest review.

Got bogged down in too many words-wasn't going to finish it, but glad I did. I was disappointed in the ending

Everyone in our group really liked this book. Living as we do in the area in which this book takes place made it especially poignant. The characters were very well developed introverts which makes many contemporary readers uncomfortable. It was a slow paced book about a time and place when people lived in a slower, more deliberate way. The author did a fantastic job of making the reader understand and feel how disconcerting anything but the change of seasons can be to people who live isolated from city life, in the solitude of nature.

I bought this an audiobook. The narration was wonderful and the prose was exquisite, but the story left me cold. I simply could not make myself care for any of these characters. Their actions seem inexplicable. I could not make myself finish this book. Very difficult. Twelve book club members at our meeting, none of us enjoyed this book.

Interesting topic for a turn of the century book.

The descriptions and language were delightful and a pleasure to read, but the characters, although well developed, were so depressing to read about for so many pages. It didn\'t leave you with a good feeling, rather, you felt a bit depressed and down at the end.

I was very moved by this epic tale, a unique story, about a family that was created by a very private but caring man, I was very moved by this book and would highly recommend it.

As the descriptive words indicate, our group was pulled in different directions by this novel. Unfortunately, this didn\\\'t lead to a very stimulating discussion. The story is of a lone man, the orchardist, in the Pacific northwest, who finds two run-away, pregnant, young girls on his land, hiding. He takes them in, like wild animals, and with infinite care, calms them and makes them a home. Their damage is grave and his continuing campaign to give them \\\"normal\\\" lives is the run of the story. Some of us found it profound and moving, others frustrating and pointless. The novel gave us wonderful sense of place and of who the orchardist was, but left us wondering what the point was, what his journey meant, what any of it led to.

Beautifully written. The location of the novel was an important character itself. Excellent discussion of the various characters even though there were mixed reactions to them.

All but one of our members really enjoyed this book. The person who didn\\\'t like it thought the story was the strangest one she\\\'s read in a long time. I and the majority of others felt the writing was very good, and the novel was full of unusual characters put into some traumatic situations. Most of the people in this book are damaged - emotionally especially, but physically too. Subjects covered ran the gamut from child abuse, dealing with death, the strenuous work of running an orchard and the kindness of strangers. Also the many ways a family can be formed. Very interesting and lots to discuss. This book was a pleasant surprise, even though some of the scenes were difficult to read.

I find it dificutlt to understand these characters and how they lived as they did with little or poor communication. i would have been interested to know how Angelene had functioned as an adult after the childhood she had and being left as an orphan at 17

Our club agreed that the descriptive language about the setting was almost poetic. But overall, we found the characters unengaging and strange. Several members were put off by the change in setting and characters from paragraph to paragraph and we missed quotation marks!

This book starts out with a negative episode. Unfortunately the only thing that kept me reading was the hope that things would improve......they did not. The lack of quotation marks made the reading more difficult. I really don't know what the authors purpose was in writing this book. It had no redeeming value.